“I see the right, and I approve it too,
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.”
Translation of Ovid, Metamorphoses, vii. 20 (translated by Tate and Stonestreet, edited by Garth), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "I know and love the good, yet, ah! the worst pursue" [veggio ’l meglio, et al peggior m’appiglio], Petrarch, Sonnet ccxxv. canzone xxi. To Laura in Life.
